Mags I Love - Nutrition Action / Prevention

Most people seem to have an agenda, and even an honest person selects what truths they want revealed. And so, it’s very difficult to know which source of information is trustworthy; certainly a source relying on the sales of advertising or airtime has pressures other than telling all sides of the story.

I find this particularly the case with medical information. The entire medical industry (research, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, surgical equipment, vitamin-supplement) is so vulgarly lucrative and competitive, that most of it’s “trusted professionals’ seem to be selling anything but good health.

So we must do our own research and check sources.

Very trustworthy;
The Centre for Science in the Public Interest, C.S.P.I., was founded in 1971 by E.D. Michael Jacobson, PH. D and 2 other scientists. It is a non-profit health-advocacy group which publishes Nutrition Action Healthletter (NAH), mounts educational programs and presses the government and corporations for changes. Their website boasts a huge list of accomplishments which is impressive, but not really the point.
The point is, they do their own research. And once they’ve completed their research, the share it. Sometimes, they use it to help persuade governing bodies to make positive changes, as they have in restaurant nutrition labeling and improving food safety laws.
They also ensure science and technology are used for public good, and encourage scientists to engage in public interest activities.

And, if research is the point, then the bottom line is, well, their bottom line; as in who’s financing their research. The very good news is CSPI is privately funded by 900,000 subscribers, they accept no advertising, nor corporate funds or government grants. And because of this, not only can we trust their information, they can also be brutally honest about, and print the names of, familiar, powerful corporations; KFC, PC, Dairy Queen, McDonalds.

If they have an agenda, this would be it; as their information is well researched, Nutrition Action Healthletter presentation can be quite blatant - almost sensational. There's not much subtlety here, which is how I prefer it.

In one of my favourite columns, Food Porn, a picture of the offending product is shown (Our Compliments Crustless Quicke Lorraine, PC Hors d'Oeurve Collection) followed by an analysis on why this item has been chosen as the nasty of the month (misleading labeling, banned ingredients, excessive sodium etc.)

Another fav is the Best Bites page where products competing in one category, such as tomato soup or fish sticks, are compared to each other and ranked. I'm usually surprised at the "healthy choice" items which are acutally anything but.

NAH is available only by subscription or at a library, and, though CSPI is an American group, they produce a Canadian Edition. Each issue has a specific focus and the final issue of each year includes an index for the year’s investigations, organized by subject (exercise, memory, fiber etc…)

A year is $36.00 for 10 issues and, though the issue is quite thin at 16 pages, as it is more newsletter than magazine it is 100% information, nicely organized and easy to understand. Once you’re in the loop with a subscription, you’ll receive offers to give free subscriptions to friends, which is how I received my first edition. My pal Lisa, back in 2003, gifted me with my first year of Nutrition Action and since then I've passed-on half a dozen more.

Trustworthy, but corporately funded

Similar to the NAH is a publication called Prevention Magazine. This is a digest-style health-nutrition-beauty monthly published by Rodale, a huge American publishing house founded in 1930 by Mr. J.I. Rodale. As a publisher, Rodale is more of a vehicle for information than a researcher, but each issue of Prevention contains an abundance of ideas, developments and alternatives. Women rule the kingdom of Rodale, and female Rodale’s have historically held the most authoritative positions, including the current Chairman of the Board (grand-daughter Maria), and 3 out of 7 Board of Director chairs.

The magazine itself is pocket-sized, like Reader’s Digest and, also like R.D., the regular departments contain highlights of information gleamed from world-wide resources, which you can explore further if desired as the sources are always noted. As well, the sections are colour-coded enabling you to skip the categories which aren’t pertinent. Unlike NAH, Prevention has a gender bias; roughly half of the contents are geared specifically towards women and a gal is always on the cover (84% of their readership is female).


Ad revenue must fuel the Prevention Magazine machine, with 94 pages out of 192 dedicated to selling products. And the brilliant thing about pharmaceutical advertising, thanks to our litigious culture, is that every 1 paid page of drug promotion has to be supported by 2 or 3 further paid pages of micro-print, explaining side-effects and drug interactions. It’s a win-win 3 for 1 cash cow for a publisher.

In spite of this shameless profiting from society’s fears I can’t deny I’m glad that, with this ill-gotten capital, Rodale is able to publish works such as Rex Weyler's book Greenpeace, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, dozens of titles about organic living and several about the teachings of world religions. They are also able to pay for ad space in one of my other favourite mags, Plenty.

I believe Prevention Magazine is available only by subscription (a year is $24.00) though most libraries likely offer it.